>>54313974Ever read Requiem, Vampire Chevalier? It's pretty much if 40k was in the DC bizzaro world with vampires and everyone goes to hell if they ever remotely sin once in life, becoming a rank of undead based on their sins, Vampires making up the higher classes.

>>54315254>is the comic any good or is the art the only thing of worth there?The worldbuilding is petty good, it's full of awesomely metal concepts and doesn't at all take itself seriously. The plot is sort of an afterthought, but it's there.

Vampires are infected by a (probably sorcerous in origin) plague that affects the blood, spawning millions of bacterium that affect the body on a cellular level and slowly rewrites the infectee's DNA

The Plague itself is actually sentient and wishes to spread to all life. It manifests as the 'beast' in the minds of infectee's.

Partially because of the desire to spread, partially because the infectee must feed, they seek out the blood of living creatures. When a Space Vampire feeds it's not just drinking blood but the creatures pyschic imprint on the Warp, AKA their souls. This is why sapient creatures are better food, and pyskers the best of all.

>>54315337Theoretical Plague could be related to the Flayer Virus somehow, an unusual mutative strain that affects organics. Or it could be Necron in origin, created by some long forgotten Cryptek named Nag something or other as a weapon or tool of some kind

>>54315357this is going to be stretching the fluff quite a bit, but what if the Mechanicus of Divisio Biologis reversed engineered Flayer Virus, or atleast made a crude replication of it and its "gone loose" in various hive citys?

>>54313974Bring back the Paraiahs. The a wacky Cryptech tries to streamline the Pariah conversion and accidentally creates a techno-organic Pariah-virus. The majority of the people who are infected have their soul destroyed, and turned into little more than mindless cyber-zombies, but when it infects someone with the Blank Gene: the original target of the Pariah conversion, something else happens. Because they never experience the trauma of having their soul destroyed, they don't become mindless: if anything their minds are supercharged. However, the destruction of the soul fuels the cyber-virus, and because they have no soul themselves, they need a steady stream of soulstuff from mortals to stay active. Their enhanced cybernetic minds can actually take control of the mindless cryptech elements of a tomb-world (certain similar/shared units.)

The rogue Cryptech who created the virus has long since declared it a failure and fucked off before realizing the full extent/power of the virus, and when he came back to check on the status of his experiment, the few infected blanks had created a little kingdom, while stemming the virus long enough to create a source of souls to fuel the blanks and new labor. They killed the dormant sleeping necrons, and took over the Cryptech elements of the tomb-world. The Rogue Cryptech, rather that stopping this, saw it as an opportunity to overthrow his own dynastic leaders.

I'm not sure where to go from there.... probably the blanks on the first planet should be all female, because Lahmians, but I think it's a good jumping off point.

>>54315421Doesn't have to be the mechanicus, could be a rogue noble who himself is some sort of closet heretek. That would dovetail with Whats-His-Face the noble in WHFB discovering/rediscovering Vampricism

Some fool trying to blend heretical sorcerer and xenotech he can't hope to understand

>>54315741so what do you think is a better way to make Pariahs into Vampires? Straight-up retrcon Pariahs into Vampires, or make them some sort of variant?

I liked my cyber-plague idea, because it allows for the creation of zombies (a Vampire Count staple.) However, you could also spin something about how a flaw in their code allows them to "hack" a tomb-world, and control the truly mindless elements (I.E. the Spyders, Wraiths, Scarabs, and Warriors, but nothing as sapient as an Immortal) could also work.

OK, so a Pariah Nano-Plague. Mind-Blanks you unless you're already a Blank, then it makes you a Space-Vampire.

It's clear how something like that could take over a single planet. First planet is planet Lahmia or some shit. How does it spread past the first planet, because that's when it becomes a galactic threat that allows you to make "your dudes."

>>54313974I would have them be a dedicated slannesh faction made of Imperial nobles who found chaos artifacts started a huge cult and ran off when the inquisition came calling. They have elite units and slave armies with monsters and mutants as well. I want this because I think it fits but also because I really want more slannesh stuff that isn't just "lol rock and roll drugs into my eye's!" I know the nature of chaos is to take everything to the furthest extreme. I just wish Slannesh was more interesting.

>>54316620An ambitious non-Magos Tech-Priest on Mars with a bad case of impatience and high ambition, who comes into contact with a Rogue Cryptech hiding in the wylds of mars, and together they come up with an idea. First they experiment on the wastes, and once they have what they're looking for, they set their larger plans into motion.

One of them should have a name that sounds similar to Nagash, and the other should have a name similar to Neferata

>>54316782>>54316793Ok, so regardless of which one is the Mechanicus, and which one is the Cryptech, what is their initial endgame plan, and how do they epicly cock it up, leading to fractured vampire-virus-worlds everywhere?

>>54316901>>54316920Maybe instead of starving chaos, it could be more about quieting warpspace, to make FTL easier. "Defeating Chaos" could just be a fringe benefit that they really don't give a shit about.

>>54317163Everything to do with Nagash in WH, always looks like a great idea at the start, but winds up blowing up in the faces of everyone, often inclusing Nagash.

I assume they begin sending infected people to various planets, strategically in ways intended to quiet the warp. WHat blows up in their faces, turning this from a brilliant plan, to something that's uncovered and actively fought against by the other factions.

>>54313974You could always make up some fluff about a bunch of feudal worlds where the decadent, sadistic nobility were afflicted with a Slaneeshi curse or some sort of necron artifact that makes them hunger for blood.

Then combine it with some industrial necromancy (they use primitive necron-like technology to make sure that their dead serfs keep working) and there you go.

>>54317267>Necron Tech dosnt mesh well with anything with a connection with the Warp? thats why Blanks are the only ones who dont turn into The Thrall?There's something to this. Maybe the technology doesn't react well to Psykers. At first, it seemed fine: it just ate their souls to power the machinery, like usual, but the collective souls of the devoured psykers didn't completely lose their sapience when distributed within the nano-power-net the same way that regular mortals did. With a few psykers, this wasn't a problem, but when they assimilated an entire hive-world, creating a critical mass of psyker-soul within the nano-neural-net, and something goes horribly wrong (Maybe that's how you get 40k Strogoi or 40k Vargheists)

They are basically super hedonistic vampires who only live for blood, slaughter and all the pleasures they can get their hands on. Marble power armor with gold trim and purple as a spot colour.

As for the necromancy; never really got an idea of how to do it in a non-nurgley way unfortunately. I instead went with massed cloned troops; living blood bags for my marines to sup on when the battle is done.

I would post a picture, but 'Im currently away and don't have any pics on me unfortunately.

>>54317705You could also do something with the irony of the fact that, their culture is, in-fact, functionally warp-proof, and if people would stop getting in their way, they could in-fact make the galaxy a better place.

>>54318260Fluff: Feudal agrarian world, the nobility discovered necron artifacts and kept it a secret. They used it to reanimate dead serfs and keep them working. Eventually, the radiation from the technology caused them to suffer from terrible anemia, and they began feeding on the living serfs to keep their blood iron levels normal. Eventually, they started replacing their failing physical bodies with cybernetic augments. However, unlike the necrons, they did not give up their individuality or physical pleasure, but built their new bodies around maximizing these traits. Oh, and efficient extraction of blood, which has become sort of like a delicacy to the nobles that they've aquired a taste for.

A faction of undying elves, replete with defected dark eldar, bringing dark eldar regenerative technology? A literal god of death that allows psykers to raise the dead? A mix of dark eldar sadism and eldar stoicism?

Von Carsteins want to openly rule the world and use humans as cattle, so they need to conquer.

Necrarchs want to increase their personal power, but also worship Nagash as a god and their master.

Strigoi are kind of insane. They wanted a peaceful vampire empire with humans having rights, but the Lahmians saw them as a threat and fucked it all up. Now they just wander looking to sate their appetites and building up bands of Ghouls in tattered clothing which they delude themselves into thinking is their empire. Also they help out Gypsies.

Blood Dragons want to free themselves from the vampire bloodlust by defeating the strongest beings they can and eating hearts. After they achieve that they just kind of become paladins.

>>54321336All of them translate well once you decide how Vampirism works.

You'd be best off saying its something a Sensei can become, something with the power of a Primarch but is invisible and untouchable by Chaos due to their soul being unbreakable or some shit at the cost of consuming souls to survive. An ancient Sensei equivalent to Neferata figured it out and she controls the 40k Lahmians AKA Illuminati. She tries to steer the Imperium in a direction beneficial to herself, sacrificing planets to Tyranids and Chaos so the forces of the Imperium are not as thinly stretched. Von Carsteins are Sensei Vampires who want to become the new God Emperor by ridding the Imperium of the Primarchs and Space Marines with their own Thunder Warrior equivalents. Strigoi were Sensei Vampires who's planets were destroyed during the Crusade and are caught between trying to rebuild their lost civilizations on other planets or running amok for revenge. Necrarchs are just pursuers of lost technology and culture who have like secret planet-sized Rogue Traders. Blood Dragons want to stabilize their soul eating by eating the strongest, no major change needed there.

Finally, the Emperor is Nagash and Vampirism was actually a failed experiment to keep favored mortals alive as his eternal companions.

Jade-Blooded are the secret force behind the Tau, Mahtmassi are the Sensei Vampires of Chaos. Necromancers are the cabal that acts as Vampire AdMech.

>>54322544Vampires are the strongest non-Elf non-Slann non-Daemon magic users in the setting. They can also outmatch a Greater Daemon when you get into named characters like Vlad and the Red Duke. Which isn't surprising in Fantasy mind you, there's a story of a Bretonnian Grail Knight killing two Bloodthirsters at once while his army destroyed their armies.

There's a reason when you ask people what they would want to be if they could be in Warhammer its usually a Vampire. If you lift and aren't retarded and manage to survive long enough you become a Fateweaver/Bloodthirster who is immune to Chaos and can be resurrected by cultists or servants at any time after you die.

>Magos and Cryptek make a plot to make human psychic nulls>make a few batches and drop them in a hive city too see what happens>virus gets way out of controll and completly overruns the planet turning it into a Necropolis of bio mechanical horrors>due to psychic fuckery the virus makes a shitty C'tan that may or not be Kurze.>this attracts the Night Lordthere is now a single planet of Vampires>also halo devices are wargear or something, probably is what makes the Strigoi, thats still getting worked on

we caught up? good. now lets find a way to incorporate >>54322621 ideas to this.

>>54323635we could probably turn the lahmians strain to become Mechanicus members who have willingly infected them selves with the Nano Virus who are totally down with turning people into Thralls and cover up any outbreaks that get out of control and get noticed by the impirum somewhat. (ie they have to call in the guard of space marines to control the threat)

>>54323412It looks like some of these articles are much better than others. Like Jade-blooded actually gives sources and is like a rewording of the actual lore but Neferata is full of bad jokes and redlinks but has a decent gallery. Is there a reason for this?

>>54313974OG Necrontyr colony who didn't get caught up in the C'tan fuckery and didn't undergo biotransferrence, and eventually solved the problem of their shitty biology by developing technomantic methods to steal life from other species. Commander Farsight's sword turns out to be one of their artifacts.

>>54315973Well I think part of it would be that Blanks spend their entire life hated and feard, not even knowing why, but this instead empowers them and gives them control. That would help explain why they go power mad. And their desire to have more being under their control would entice them to want to spread that reach to other planets.

What kind of powerlevel would they have in terms of fluff then tabletop? I like the idea of the "vampire Lords" being made from blanks. I keep thinking of the Culexus Assassin from the one novel with the "Alex Mercer/Prototype" rip off who looked like a fancy lady in a gown wearing a heavy collar but once she took it off made everyone in 20 feet drop to their knees.

Lets see... Virus, possible nanomachine, designed to prolong life? Turns most humans into "zombies" a few make other different mutations, and heavy cybernetic modification increases chances of them turning into something more than a brainless thrall. I'm thinking the idea of it being Nanomachine/reverse engineered from necrodermis fits the best.

But Blanks for some reason get the biggest change, becoming the "vampire lord" of the setting. Physically they remain mostly unchanged in immediate appearance, but the effect blends with the negative field they put out and lets them control lesser beings.

Could be a balance between powerful former blanks, and heavily cyberized beings that can resist the commands of the blanks and seek some power of their own.

Turn left, forward twelve paces forward, turn right, nine paces forward... back to where she started. The sub-magos strained the upper limits of both her CPU and her old flesh-brain trying to calculate the number of dimensions that this labyrinthine architecture operated on. The manipulators that used to be fingers instinctively made the sign of the Omnisiah, before she stopped herself.

An awkwardly chipper voice chimed out from behind her

“You're right to hesitate. Superstition is not going to help you here.”

She turned around to see a screen that hadn't been there before, with a face projected on it

“Identify yourself machine spirit”

“Machine spirit? No that doesn't sound right. I am less than I once was, but still not one of your silly toys. I have... memories. I can't remember.... maybe I made bodies for the gods and my brothers punished me for it... or perhaps I made bodies for the mortals to make them immortal, and my children punished me for it.”

With that word: “Immortal” Nerata's aural sensors began emitting a slight whirring noise as they went into overdrive. Perhaps she had finally found what she was looking for.

>“Did you make Cawl immortal. Are you why he isn't dead yet?”

“Cawl? Should this name mean something? No... names... yes... names. My name is.... elsewhere... in another piece, or perhaps simply erased as part of my punishment. But making immortal... yes... I know how to do this. I believe it was called.... transference... or perhaps it was called Paraiah. Would you like that? I haven't had a friend to share my knowledge with in a long time.”

“Yes, but if we're going to work together, I'm going to need something to call you. Then what should I call you?”

“What are you called? Perhaps I can be called that as well...”

“I am sub-magos Nerata of the Adeptus-Mechanicus, but that's my....”

“Mech.. anicus... Mech... Mek... yes... this was once used... you may call me Mekash.”

>>54328076Oh that art is awesome... I remember reading a novel where there was a character that was a Mechanicus ambassador, his entire body was mechanical but made to look human. Obviously not, but just the shape, he was described as being like a classical sculpture crafted in alloys and precious metals, but able to move and emote on an unreal level.

Anyone know which book that was?

Anyway I'm thinking the whole thing should be powered by Necrodermis/liquid metal/nanomachine style tech. And that the more awareness of themselves they have the more manipulation they have over their form.

A Pariah/vampire lord(need a final name for this type) Still appears mostly flesh unless they want otherwise, but the mechanicas ones have already given away large chunks of themselves to machinery, but now can alter their form to suit their own desired aesthetics at will.

Take>>54328076related, Imagine this was a Magos that had swapped out her lower jaw and her spinal cord for tech, and now she made it look as shown just because she could. Oh and I think all the eyes should glow one color or another, they have Necro nano tech running through their veins, it glows from within, and maybe this modified corrupted form glows red instead of green. Perfect for glowing creepy red vampire eyes.

>>54328469I think for fluff we should make it so its a struggle to possess a marine, and that their armors outer shell is somewhat resistant. But that once it does get a hold of them the Black Carapace is just as much of a cyborg modification as most of the stuff the Mechanicus does to themselves... So that blends into the rest of the existing fluff for what it would do to the marines.

They would retain a good chunk of their free will from the infection, but a powerful Pariah could still take some control of them.

>>54329181Think a space marines super immune system gives them some protection. Doesn't make much sense but rule of cool right?

But again once enough of it gets into them, it gets in the armor, and then into the black carapace...

Oooh what about a vampire Dread?! A giant walking coffin! Oh fuck that screams tech vampire!!!

>>54329220I mean fluff too. A blank lord might look squishy but he needs to have a way to beat up a basic SM, if not a couple of them. Maybe the null field gets ratcheted up, weaponized like a Culexus assassin to start. Then perhaps he looks flesh but everying underneath is Necrodermis upgraded. Growing sudden gleaming claws, or projecting a personal void field?

>>54328506I will write more soon.>>54328923I like it, though I feel his answer should stay ambiguous. I'm a big believer that the unknown is always spookier than the defined, and keeping Mekash a strange entity, that might be a shard of the Deciever, who genuinely lost its memories, might be a shard of the deciever intentionally decieving Nerata, might be a shard of the void dragon, or might be the cryptech who originally figured out how to embody the Ctan and was punished alongside the monsters he created by being imprisoned in a tesseract vault like them. He could be all and none of these things, and his (shared) memories should be sufficiently disjointed and contradictory, and his narration sufficiently unreliable, to leave it up to the player/reader to decide.

>>54329995Diary of a PDF soldier, name unknown Hive City Necropolis. M40

Dear Journal, today conections to all of the Lower Hive have been completely cut. normaly this wouldn't be out of place on a middle of nowhere hive like this. send down some repair servitors and power would be back 2 week tops.

problem is that we sent them two months ago and they havnt came back since.

still, not a problem, Underive muties or general gang riots probably took over the place again and we would send some PDF or Arbites to deal with the problem.

they where sent in a month ago and still nothing.

i dont know whats going on down there. But I pray to the Emperor that this'll blow over soon.

Nerata glided effortlessly down the steps of her cyber-pyramid, while her new skin rearranged itself and shifted its tone to be more radiant in the mid-day outdoor martian lighting. Nanodermis did not have the same aesthetic shortcomings as the normal mechanicus implants; while it could shift to resemble her old form when the situation called for discretion, here in the deep cyber-wylds of Mars, she was unlikely to be seen by any mind not slaved to her own, and would simply be mistaken for a wild machine spirit if she were. Her shifting form descended beyond deeper, into the catacombs, ignoring the necro-servitors working tirelessly to expand and perfect the superstructure.

A dissonant cacophony of mechanical klaxon and distorted female voices boomed simultaneously from the slender humanoid frame and from every available speaker in the laboratory: “MEKASH!!!”

“You did not need to come in person Lady Nerata. To what do I owe the privilege of such an honored visit.” The skeletal drone in front of the monitor did its best to briefly mimic a bow before returning to its experiment.

The nanomachines creating the illusion of beauty began to worble and rearrange themselves into a shifting gargantuan silhouette that made no pretense at humanity, much less attractiveness. “Do not play the fawning serf with me today Mekash. I came for answers, not empty repartee.”

“Ah, so you've discovered the wireless signal blockers at the edge of our... YOUR domain.”

>>54330453The monstrosity continued to vibrate with rage, emulating enfuriated feminine shrieks. “My domain IS Mars, or it should be, and you are getting in my way.”

“They are for your own protection. There is... something, slumbering beneath this planet. Your old masters are powerless against our control, but this... I believe your people called it 'Void Dragoon' could well use a similar source-code to our own. It is too big of a risk.”

Unable to contain themselves anymore, the nano-swarm broke into a barely perceptible cloud of matter-devouring dust as a fully inhuman voice boomed out of it: “You senile old fool, you ARE what was sleeping under Mars. YOU are the Void Dragon.”

What can only be described as a chuckle escaped the monitor as it crackled with static. “That was a convenient version of events, that seemed consistent when I first awoke... and it didn't seem necessary to correct you as it became increasingly less likely.”

The swarm began to coalesce back into a feminine form as the desire for power and vengeance was overridden by her hard-wired desire to learn “Then what ARE you Mekash?”

“There are too many answers to adequately sate your human desire for singular truth. The question you SHOULD be asking is where the Void... Dragon was it.... is hiding. You see, in roughly 92% of eventualities that are sufficiently congruent with my memories, the Void Dragon, or at-least another Void Dragon as the case may be, is still here. You see, even if I were what I though I was... and I may well be, I was definitely imprisoned by Necrontyr, not a Star-Child. The one that WAS is still out there... unless your data logs on the foundation of Mars are flawed.”

The fully-reformed Nerata begrudgingly affected a tone of deference “Then where do I spread?”

I have been surveying your grievously inadequate imperial star-charts. Have you heard of the Hive-World Lahmia-IV?”

>>54330970>Mekash send Nerata to Lahmia-IV to See how the Virus spreads in the "wild"

>build a army from the Underhive and slowburn the Lowerhive via airborn strain of Nanodermis infecting them slowly into thralls. and biology and bionics meld in horrifying ways

>using tech magic Nerata shuts off the power in the entirety of the middle hive and make a full blitzkrieg slaughtering the citizens and make constructs with the corpses and meld them with APC and other Cars. allwhile the upper hive starts shitting there pants because they cant make contact with the Underhive and any attempt to make contact with them disappear and there fearing a Uprisingfull invasion

>as soon as the Astropath finally sent a message the Upper hive gets blitzkrieg'd to death.

Nanodermis finally makes contact and infects a Psycher and a Warpstorm covers the planned and a Headless horseman lesser chaos god comes galloping down of the clouds and aided the slaughtering of the rest of the hive.

>have a few billion people left

>infect them and mind wipe everyone's mind

>Thralls go back into the Underhive and play dead

>warpstorm calms

>inquisition or some other emergancy crew come by to see if everyone was safe and to see if chaos happend or something

>"uh sorry we [insert lie here] but this mechanicus lady helped us outbut alot of people died

I actually did a thread on this a while back, gonna post some chunks I saved.

> Once upon a time there was an Imperial Sector full up with Nobles of all sorts who had existed within a strictly regimented eugenically based state before the IOM came and nommed them up. Over time their incestuous ways [Insert webbed toe joke] and general dicking around with warpy drugs resulted in the whole nobility of the system falling under a simple very, very fucked up bloodline. Along with most of the physical deformities and embarrassment that comes with inbreeding to shit, the chaps had also somehow picked up an inherited birth defect that effectively acted as Sickle Cell on steroids: they could no longer produce any blood cells of their own and autosanguine was violently rejected by their body. Fearing the extinction of their precious bloodline, the clan's members quickly set upon a solution: use the vast numbers of serfs accumulated on their planet sized feudal estates as a massive blood bank. As things grew even more desperate, they skipped the blood bag entirely and went straight to the source, adopting cybernetic fangs that drew blood from their victims directly into their veins. Of course, this rampant mutating and mysterious disappearance of large swathes of their peasants didn't go unnoticed, and the Imperium quickly dropped the hammer on the chumps. Said chumps, however, due to the Counts' unification under a certain Von Carstein and the mutation's secondary effects of spawning fucktons of really powerful Psykers with the ability to, albeit inefficiently, navigate the Warp (Some Navis Nobilite blood must have slipped in there somehow) and the Imperium's more pressing matters on other fronts, the bastards managed to hold off and survive. Now, isolated and growing ever more twisted, the Transylv'an sector of the Vampyre Counts descends into a black mirror of the IOM

Even before they degenerated into disgusting mutants, the Counts had dwelled largely within massive austere satellite-manors that orbited their planetary estates (preferring isolation to interacting with the scum on the surface) and they have continued to serve them well in their current form.

Their gloomy halls and windowless chambers provide protection for their delicate skin, and, as each Manor is equipped with orbital and ship-to-ship weaponry, a means of suppressing revolts below and fighting off Imperial incursions from the outside.

In their years of isolation, the Counts have experimented out of necessity with technology, applying their latent psychic talents to assembling great weapons of war.

This can be seen most prevalently by the means in which they power their craft: not through fuel of any conventional means, but through raw psychic power.

Of course, powering an entire ship on one's own would invariably result in overexertion and subsequent death, so the Counts employ the assistance of thousands upon thousands of brainwashed Thralls who are literally burned out like cheap batteries as living fuel.

In mathematical terms, a Count wishing to take his Satellite-Manor to coordinates X, Y would need to expend X amounts of Thralls in order to do so.

Similarly, they would need to use X number of Thralls to fire a shot of X power level at an incoming ship.

As to FTL travel, this is supplied by the Counts themselves, who act in the role of Navigator (possessing, as I said, several degrees of Navigator blood in their complex pedigrees)

While the counts are perfectly capable of facilitating Warp Travel, this comes at great risk and expenditure to themselves, and most prefer to keep their manors fairly sedentary, using traditional STL travel methods and slingshotting off of planets’ orbits for short journeys and employing a court composed of large numbers of low ranking Vampyre nobility to supplement their strength when warp travel is needed

I'm glad this thread is still going! I had some ideas last night while trying to sleep.

Ok so spit balling but let me know what you guys think.

Lets say the Virus is a modified anti-warp/psyker weapon, made by hereteks on modified Necron tech.

So the virus is meant to convert normal beings into anti-warp weapons. It does this by turning their biological bits into cyber-pariahs. But its more than that, you see they've been looking for a way to both create artificial blanks, and to also weaponize them. And its not enough for them to just hurt pyschics by proximity, they've also learned to harness the psycher/blank reaction as a power source. Something about the reaction when blanks push back psychic energies can be used as a powersource by the infected. This is why they still keep around uninfected! Its not enough to just turn a planet into cyber zombies, they need to keep around a plethora of living being so they can intermingle and feed off the destruction of their psychic energy.

This is why a natural blank is so powerful as well, the nanomachines feed off psychic destruction that they themselves create, but with a natural pariah they don't need to exert themselves to create that effect, they can just help to enhance it and use the resulting energies to enhance the host to a more durable level.

And as for why pre-cyborgs have more resistances and basically become cybermancers instead of more zombies and ghouls is that they have pre existing neural tech, whether in basic neural tech, or in a black carapace attached to a nervous system. But that these beings need to take in new biomatter to distract the virus from entirely assimilating them into said mindless husks.

>>54334662This is fun, and while Psychic powers feels very vampirish(controlling thralls, or sucking mental energy) I like the twist of them being Pariahs. I feel like it blends well to offset them to the rest of 40k, and with how fantasy warhammer has the connection between Tomb Kings and Vamps, this has a connection between Necrons and Vamps.

>>54334688Oh and the idea of giant army of blanks is just plain OP against some forces out there, for balance sake lets say that lesser Turned can only really make that effect in high numbers. The Cybermancers on the other hand can do the effect at will at varying levels of power, but doing so increases the effect of the virus' assimilation of their remaining biomatter, which leads to the loss of their freewill, which leads to them needing to take in more bio-matter/blood.

>>54334746Yep! Damn shame I can't find more fitting artwork of Manor-Satellites, but I'll do me best.

>>54334769Hm. I think they could certainly work as Pariahs, this is just my own take on them /tg/ and I came up with in the last 40k vamp thread. By all means, reform whatever of my ideas you like the look of into something that floats your own boat I ain't stingy.

> Though their ways have quite divulged from Imperial Orthodoxy, the Counts still see themselves as being subjects of the God Emperor. More so, in fact, than the filth of the Imperium proper, as many see their genetic uniqueness as proof of their direct relation to the Emperor himself (More reasonable Counts theorizing that they may be a distant outcome of one of the Emperor's many lost projects to uplift the human race) Regardless of the case, the Vampires universally loathe ordinary humans, especially of the Imperium, as inferior examples of men and their rightful slaves.

So Infantry.Naturally, their core unit takes the form of the ubiquitous Thrall: a mindless husk enslaved to the will of a Count and armed with rudimentary armour (optional) and weaponry.

Just like in Space, the Vampires can consume these Thralls in order to fuel their Psychic powers and further augment their already impressive abilities.

This lends itself to a unique school of tactics and strategy revolving around managing the same plentiful resource for both infantry and artillery.A Count might rush his Thralls into one side of an opposing force (causing them to mass on that flank) and then consume them to bombard their exposed and crippled underbelly with Psychic blasts.

In addition to these Thralls, most Counts employ a mass conscript army of their serfs that resembles an Imperial Guard regiment, except with shittier gear and far poorer morale.

Traveling further up the chain of command, Counts tend to possess elite units of personal bodyguard known as Ghouls kept fanatically loyal to him or herself through generations of service. This force tends to feature highly experienced veterans that the Counts have kept unnaturally young through the powers of the Warp and many even approach younger Space Marines in age. They employ these centuries of combat expertise to brutal use with their array of Archaeotech weaponry that has been kept in the Noble families since the Age of Strife.

To top this off, many of these elite shock troops have developed a taste for blood themselves, their ancestors having occasionally fostered bastard children with their masters.

The Vampire Counts themselves are also fearsome presence on the battlefield, attacking the very minds of their opponents to inspire mass terror and blasting the enemy to smithereens with the raw power of the Warp.

Although they all stem from the same major bloodline, there are variations in Clan amongst the Counts.

The most numerous and influential of these are, of course, the Von Carsteins.The Von Carsteins control a majority of the agri and hive worlds in the sector and, as a result, are able to field massive armies of thralls and serf conscripts that put that of other clans to shame.

In addition, thanks to a surplus of 'fuel' to experiment with, the Von Carsteins are unquestionably the most powerful Psykers of the Vampire counts, and have even been known to summon Daemons into battle and exert limited control over them.

The Țepeș are descended from Feudal Lords and Tribal Chiefs of Feudal and Feral worlds respectively, and possess a decidedly militant culture.

The Țepeș are die-hard advocates of "Might-Makes-Right", casting out any members who prove too frail for their standards.Țepeș subscribe to an odd system of chivalry and insist on taking blood exclusively from the worthy, preferably after a fairly one-sided duel in the name of 'honour'

One of their more bizarre aspects, the Țepeș claim to have discovered a method of absorbing the ancestral memory of their kills. Whether this is mere esoteric nonsense or truth remains to be seen, but something must be said for the martial prowess the Țepeș display in battle.

The Țepeș prefer to engage in melee combat, and as such, have developed means of enhancing their deadly craft. By extracting iron from the blood itself, the Țepeș forge what they refer to as (fittingly) "Blood Iron", which they forge into warp-attuned power weapons and armour.

>>54335229Last but not least, the Moreau are the sector's industrial powerhouse, claiming the forgeworlds of Transylv'an as their home.

While their powers are nowhere near as developed as their counterparts in other clans, they maintain a foothold through their unrivaled technological might, hoarding archaeotech wonders and manufacturing a seemingly endless line of cybernetically augmented Servitor-Thralls.

Though rumours, especially those spread by a Vampire, are never to be trusted, reliable sources of Imperial informants claim that the Moreau have or have at some point had relationships to the Dark Mechanicus.

Xenos from a moon orbiting a dying sun, their small empire was destroyed by chaos, and they were driven the the edge of extinction. Their sole mission is to destroy the chaos gods. To do this they've developed nano-machines that sever emotional and cognitive function in bipeds, making the host a zombie that can only follow basic commands. These lobotomised beings have almost no presence in the warp, and are like spoiled food for demons.

The xenos travel to planets alone, or in small groups, infecting populaces with the nanomachines (which are self reproducing) the zombies bite other civilians, within a month or so an earth like planet will be entirely under the xenos' thrall.

The xenos are blinded by light, forcing them to live nocturnally or else wear modified suits on earth-like planets. They never developed FTL travel, and among the surviving xenos there are too few scientists/engineers to learn the art, therefore when they travel they need to stow aboard other races' ships.

Due to their critically endangered status, they prefer not to fight, leaving that to their thralls, who fight fearlessly though ineptly. When forced to fight, the xenos are naturally more powerful fighters than humans, and they wear power armor of great quality, they are also supported by bat-like drones.

>>54334870>Oh and the idea of giant army of blanks is just plain OP against some forces out thereIf the idea is for this faction to be a 40k version of Vampire Counts, then you'd really only have a couple of vamps in an army while the rest are disposable lesser undead with none of the fancy powers of their masters.

>>54337906Yeah but you need a reason for the vampirism, and that idea was based around a virus reverse engineered from necron tech by hereteks. The virus has a crazy effect on blanks, and I was thinking it could have been made to turn people into artificial blanks. But the effect isn't that strong on random people. Really it would have been a failure as a weapon if it didn't have such a more powerful effect on cyborgs and pre-existing blanks.

>>54338239Given that hereteks are the ones doing this, the nanotech virus could have simply been created by them so they could integrate Necron tech into their bodies. No need for an "artificial blanks" weapons program or anything so elaborate; just some crazy bastards desperate for power and immortality.

Plus, if the damage to their souls was an unintended side effect of having a necrodermis-infused body rather than the goal of the process, you could have a good excuse for them to act like vampires rather than just evil cyborgs. Gotta consume the life essence of mortals to help preserve their souls or they risk ending up suffering the madness and loss of self that rekt so many of the Necrons.

>>54341310> Extra Heresy. A surprisingly large amount of the warband is willing to work alongside aliens, so long as they also worship Chaos (also this isn’t always the case. May also just include mutual hatred for the same enemy.). The battle-brothers in this force are more tolerant than most others.

>>54341501>The hero corrupted nearly an entire sector of planets, causing the populations of them to fall to Chaos. If your warband loathes Chaos, he instead managed to get entire sectors to violently rebel against Imperium rule, throwing them into total anarchy.

>hey are u guys Vampires, too?

>uh, sure?

>can we join you?

>..yea?

Warband "Homeworld" what planet did the counts gave them after joining there Cause

>>54315636I can understand why they got rid of it but there was gold in there is it's unfortunate. As for the Pariahs, fuck their old rules, bring them back as nanite scarab swarms that can sudo-deepstrike by mimicking enemy troop units. In the fluff this would mean you could have Pariah spies assuming identities, on the table they're just specialized ambushers.

>>54342926Could be something like the Blood Angels chapter's Sanguinor, or the Green Knight from Bretonnia, an ancient champion who supernaturally manifests to aid his comrades in times of great peril.

I wish this was two threads, since I honestly couldn't care less about another chaos warband, but I'm going to keep writing fluff about Nerata and Mekash

Nerata looked out the view-screen of her spire to observe the world that was now slaved to her collective, either literally, or through oaths of fealty. She had not expected the side effect of the Blanks being infected being able to resist her direct will, but nearly all of them eventually bended the knee to their patient-zero.

With a wave of her hands, the planetary landscape was replaced with an all-too familiar face in a screen.

“Mekash. Our experiment was a success. The planet has been fully subjugated to our superiority. I believe it is time for us to expand.”

“My dear, you're still thinking like a mortal. You're never going to die. You can wait for the perfect time to strike: just be patient.”

“I'm tired of your excuses Mekash. Imperial investigations have ended, and other than the food shipments, they've all but left us alone. Now is the perfect time to strike.”

“Actually darling... three months ago was the perfect time to strike, and it went swimmingly. Our little empire has dozens of planetary fiefdoms.”

“What? And why was I not informed? What port-spire did you send these from, because I've been monitoring all of them.”

“The one on Mars my little prototype. There's no need for obfuscation at this point.”

“But... you're here... and the astropaths have no messages save those which I've personally given them.”

“Well... there is A version of me that's there. What obligation did you think I was under to delete my original when transfering to the ship's computers?”

>>54344741>Warband/floats visits Lahmia-IV>chapter apothecary/'s explain to the System Governor that the Geneseed super fucked and the Chapter Master is hearing voices and has outbursts of Extreme acts of violence and cruelty>"oh well we have a Magos with us mabye she can fix it">Chapter Master, and by the Chapter/Warband gets Infected as well.>suddenly there armor can melt and turn into normal and go inside there skin and turn into normal cloathing.>"nothing gets fixed really, but due to persuaseve talk Nerata convinces the NightLords warband to disguise themselves as loyalists and hide and keep watch over a strain infecting a Feudal World.

>>54344887Naw naw naw man. Don't mix the two. Vampires as just another flavor of chaos marines is fine, and vampires as a necron-heretek-collaboration cyber-virus is fine too, but trying to mix the to disparate feels.... forced.

Does the local planet play the slowgame and Build a Vampire Planet through Generations? or does Mekash have several different Projects involving Nanodermis that his Heretekult (this sounded better in my head) Orchestrates for him?

The as the festival wore down, the remaining Emperor's Angels gathered at the center of town, and began regailing the children and townsfolk with a story. The campfire almost seemed to obey the rules of drama, flickering at all the appropriate times to highlight the storyteller's intent. This was surely strange, for the Angels of Death to stay after the fight, but none had ever seen them in person before, and none could question this irregularity....

>You may not believe it, but once upon a time, there was a time when we angels were corrupted. Down to our strongest willed, each had given in to the will of the dark gods... but do not worry, fate was to bring us a salvation.

>On a long lost world, we met with another, different corruption, one which we believed we could combat: but instead it spread to us.

>At first, when its effects were young, we believed it a boon, the heretical whispers of the warp no longer touched our souls. For the first time in centuries, our souls were silend and at peace....until a new whisper came.

>First it was but a whisper, but then the hunger grew. Our souls were protected from the ruinous powers, but at a price: both in cure of our original heresy, and as punishment for it, the souls of our brethren slipped slowly into the night, and only one sacrifice could bring it back: blood.

>But fear not, for our great leader: the most honorable of warriors, took us from war to war, sating our bloodlust on the suffering of the wicked. Our brothers marched forward, facing greater and greater foes, until there were none left here who could challenge him.

>However, this newfound strength did not sate his thirst... he needed greater foes to fight, and so he left us, to march into the eye of terror itself. It was there that he found THE DRAGON.

>Greater than any daemon, this ancient being fought tooth and nail, but he could not stand against our lord, and with valiant chainsword in hand, he seperated the beast's head from its body, and devoured its heart.... and for the first time since our original fall, his soul knew true, LASTING peace.... and he returned to us to share his peace.

> “And you no longer felt the hunger?” And that's how you came to save us from the scary bug-things” came a child's voice.

>No. It was only lessened. Only our lord has found true purity, but still we seek. Where once, whole planets would be needed, now only a single village will suffice.

>>54344866>Mekash returns to his little temple in the Wyld of Mars.>Turns out he as Several Projects scattered around the Galaxy, all involving Nanodermis>one is a Space Marine chapter with a Geneseed modification that turns there Armor and Black Carapace made of Nanodermis>another is a Deldar Cabal/Haemonculus he trades the "Failed" Experiments with. infiltrating them in secrete.>another is at the fringes of the Galaxy, the Halo stars, where a Nanovirus Cult is reviving old relics of the men Men of Iron.

>>54345049I think Makesh allows each little kingdom to expand independently once he's planted it, but stops helping them once they're established, because he has better things to do. Similarly... I just had the idea of him staying within his Tesseract Vault willingly for saftey, and orchestrating things from within.

Now that I wrote this for fun>>54345198 I could kind of see a night-lords warband becoming not-blood-dragons, but I still feel like they should no longer be touched by chaos: the taint of chaos was replaced by the taint of the nano-virus, and they are trying to fix themselves through martial perfection... just like the blood dragons.

>The rogue-trader family Van-Der-Sten. Upon finding an archanotech device they had been commissioned to find beyond the reach by an anonymous benefactor on Mars, they began to change. Their longevity treatments seem to be the best in the galaxy, and their fortunes seem to keep rising.

>Fanatical Puritan Xenos Inquisitor, who loaths xenos, but reluctantly uses a warband that features Jokaero heavily (though she keeps them caged when not in uses, and grequently abuses them.)

>Inquisitor investigates anomalous Necron artifact at the behest of Mars. Taking her trusty band of war-chimp-slaves. The virus infects and drains every single member of the warband, except for the Inquisitor and one Jokaero, both of whom happened to be blanks. The Jokaero thinks faster, and takes out its aggression on the Inquisitor.

>Infected Jokaero-Vamp-Lord is much more aggressive than traditional Jokaero, and begins building for war. Normally the Jokaero don't speak, but in the heat of battle, this one (who has since grown to tremendous size) occasionally screams out a single battle cry: STROGOOOOI

>>54345489>>54345513however, due to a Unkown factor whenever they leave a Battlefield the dead would always rise back up from the dead, this would often plunge plannets they saved straight back into anarchy as soon as they left.

this Pissed the Inquisition off to no end, and after the Firehawk incident they immediately set there sights on the Bloody Tears, hence why there Traitors.

>>54345777ok, Ghouls and Strigoi coverd, lets just go with the Idea that The Jokaero are actual Monkeys and the mutations are a unintended side effect of them not being 100% human, but still have enough of the right bits with out mutalating the body and turning it into a Corpse Construct.

>>54316444>Hell, thinking about it you could probably very easily make everything about this Virus connected to every chaos god in one way or another.I think Space-Vampyrism works better as an anti-chaos weapon where the cure might be worse than the disease.

>>54345205>Theres even a Forgeworld where the Bulk of his Cult operate at who makes Nanodermis infused Weaponry for the Guard that slowly convirts them into Thralls, bound eternally to the Weapons that there New Gods have made for them.

>>54344090I figure a lot of his lore is already established by the RNG gods earlier in the thread. Just a matter of filling in the gaps.

So we've got this brutal but honorable warrior who was forced out of the Imperium not because of treason, but because it was discovered that his chapter were descended from the Night Lords' tainted gene seed. Living in exile with his battle brothers on the fringes of the remote Transylv'an Sector, he came to hate the dogmatic ways of the Imperium he once served, but was too proud to become a slave to the Chaos Gods as so many others had. He reformed his warband as a knightly order holding dominion over the serfs of the sector's feudal worlds, swelling the ranks of his forces with whatever wayward souls who would swear to his code.

As his warband grew in influence, it was only a matter of time before he attracted the attention of Imperial agents. Now accused as a Chaos Lord by his former masters, he faced overwhelming forces arrayed against him. The Dark Gods once more sought his loyalty with offers of great power, yet once more he refused them. It was then, in his darkest hour, that a strange envoy came before him. A pale creature of glistening synthetic flesh and almost formless grace. She claimed to speak for one on Mars, bearing a mighty gift for those who, like her nameless master, stood apart from the Imperium. What choice did he have but to accept?

He and his men were transformed, their bodies remade in a blasphemous fusion of flesh and Necron nano-technology. Beyond the grip of death, stronger and faster than any mortal man, they swept aside the Imperial expeditionary force in a single night of horror and blood. It was only then that he came to understand the price he had paid for this victory as he watched his men feast upon the dying and felt the same hunger growing insatiably within him.

>>54346083>>54346172the entire sector was a dumping ground basically. and Nerata is now the unifying the various strains under her will because she's a subconsisly under the controll of the last Pariah, Mekash.

This Message is inteded to go to the Departmento Munitoru, General of the CK 8th regiment reporting in.

<sigh>, I regret to report that our resupplies where not the Medication we Requested, but alas, more lasguns for the 10th time this year. and while we all "appreciate" the fact that you atleast supplied us with exotic models, we regret that there all faulty.

while there deffinetly more effective at removing the Ork Scurge on this plannet, vaporising flesh of these savage beasts with green fire, we have had numerous reports that the Majority of the stock have been leaking a strange black "syrupy" supstance that the troops cant wash off with water supplies. also some reports are saying that the harsh green light the gun exhausts are obnoxious to the eyes. which is discouraging to the men.

we request for the Departmento to resucure these experimental weaponry and resuply us with medical equipment

>the picture supplied with the message is of a Lasgun that apperes to be infused with a Gause Flayer

>>54347012>there special equipment is the Elite sythoid troops that are cloned underneath the bowls of there planet who have special augmentations that allow them to live on the surface of the planets lifeless surface

>>54347583>>54347615Cyber Vampyrs live and dwell in and around the areas of Space known as "The Halo Stars" Reason being is that while officially being outside the Borders of the Imperium, the vast, vast magority of planets are either Poorly Documented, or down right ignored. allowing entire empires, both traitor and xeno to flourish.

such conditions allow the Cyber Vampyrs to reign freely outside the scrutiny of The Inquition and Impirum at larg

>>54347812>also what should the 40k Von Carsteins should be called?Van-Der-Sten. It's very similar to Von Carstein, but while slavic names represent opulent third world noble wealth in the medieval erra, South-Affrican sounding names denote opulent third-world wealth in the modern erra.

>turns out he is a Inquisitor that keep sure that planets outside the official border of the Imperium stay loyal.>infects wife>Bangs wife>wife gets kids>spoiled shit kids get planets as gifts>Vanderson strain gets loose and spreads around the galaxy

Difficult to do, seeing how vampires are so fucking weak within the context of 40k that it took until the 13th Black Crusade for the Imperium to kickstart an undead hunting Inquisition branch.....and those guys exclusively go after magical Nurgle undead.

Really, there's no way a vampire can survive in a setting where GODDAMN SUN GUNS are commonplace.

>>54348129I dunno man. Lasguns act pretty much as carbine-sized HMG's. So I guess you can just keep shooting a vampire with a lasgun until the vampire runs out of blood to regenerate its flesh, and then you can just keep shooting it until it dies.

>>54348306Well, the way I immagined it, it replaces biomass, while consuming the soul, so anything carbon-based that has a soul is fair game.

Might have issues with Orks, because their soul is weird, and part of the WAAAGH collective, but theorhetically if the Nanodermis-corrupted/replaced souls outnumbered the WAAAAGH-souls, then MAYBE it might start working, but 9/10 times, you just get a Cybork

SImilarly, the Tyranids don't have true souls, or if they do, it's a soul from another galaxy where souls and the warp work fundementally differently, and are probably not suitable fuel for the Nanodermis.